


i don't remember us falling in love (but i'm sure that it happened)

by ohhaypsy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Communication, Honesty, M/M, Talking, The Homestuck Epilogues, The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27109012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohhaypsy/pseuds/ohhaypsy
Summary: It was easy to put it off.And put it off.And put it off.Until one day you're sitting with him on your couch, looking at him from a foot and a half away and realizing that your boy would make a fucking bomb ass president. Until the whole thing goes to shit and you're back sitting with him on your couch, looking at him from a foot and a half away and realizing that you've wasted way too much time.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 7
Kudos: 65





	i don't remember us falling in love (but i'm sure that it happened)

**Author's Note:**

> I, like most everyone, have a lot of feelings about the epilogues, good and bad. Bad: so many characters got done so dirty. Good: I'm absolute davekat trash, so there's plenty in there to still keep my heart warm.
> 
> So here's dumb boys being soft.
> 
> Title is from Remember Us by Gabriel Royal. It's a beautiful song, please check it out.

The two of you had been walking a tightrope for years. Definitely at least seven, more depending on how you calculated tiptoeing around it on the meteor.

It had started off simple enough, just the only two dudes on the meteor (sans a psychotic clown) chilling together rather than dealing with a bunch of crazy broads. Hanging out with the mayor, mixing music, watching movies… maybe sometimes all snuggled up on the couch together. You can't really remember the first time it happened, just your chest clenching when you realized it was happening at all. But you remember eventually just letting yourself enjoy having Karkat beside you.

On that meteor, tucked away in your little cocoon of not giving a fuck, you had let yourself enjoy having him pressed up against you, enjoy feeling safe enough with your head in his lap to get some proper sleep, enjoy sliding into each other's beds when the nightmares got to be too much.

The first time had been you. A dream bubble had sent you into a tailspin of anxiety, wandering the halls until you found yourself in front of Karkat’s door, knocking before you talked yourself out of it. He'd been awake too, and without saying anything he'd shuffled over in his pile to make space, then gently grabbed your sleeve to pull you in.

You talked quietly for hours about nothing, his head tucked under your chin and your arms wrapped around his waist. And it was surprisingly easy to let yourself just appreciate having him there. Neither of you ever felt the need to clarify what it was or what it meant to his quadrants or your sexuality (though it did get you thinking about shit you'd been pushing down for too long). Any of that sort of real talk was left vague and conceptual, undefined. No point in wasting breath on it when you were all hurtling through space to your pretty fucking likely deaths. You'd deal with that all after.

But you survived. And you didn't deal with it at all. No labels was fine in a vacuum, but now, with other people around, with the fact that the two of you had never even kissed (though there had been a few times where you'd gotten _really_ fucking close), with laying a foundation for civilization and then vaulting five thousand years forward, it was easy to put it off.

And put it off.

And put it off.

Until one day you're sitting with him on your couch, looking at him from a foot and a half away and realizing that your boy would make a fucking bomb ass president. Until the whole thing goes to shit and you're back sitting with him on your couch, looking at him from a foot and a half away and realizing that you've wasted way too much time.

And even then you walk that tightrope, both of you talking about your feelings but still refusing to acknowledge what's so obviously _there._

There's a fight in the back of your mind that you don't really understand, but it doesn't matter because you finally kiss him the way you've always wanted to, the way you should have seven years ago before rolling off to fight however many Jacks. You kiss him with a depth of emotion that you weren't sure you were capable of.

And he kisses you back, like he's wanted to for just as long.

It's all heat at first, your hands in his hair while his clutch at your shirt. He leans back into the couch, pulling you with him until you're laying on top of him, between his legs which wrap around your waist, holding your body flush against his.

But slowly, the heat dissipates, settles into a warmth that's not just in your dick, but your whole body, emanating from your chest. Your kisses slow and soften, until you're just laying there with your eyes closed, forehead pressed to his while you simply share the same breath.

"Should have done that a long time ago," you whisper against his mouth.

"Yeah," he mutters back, quieter than you've ever heard him. His claws run gently along your scalp. "We fucking should have."

You open your eyes to meet his, red on red, and if that ain't fuckin' destiny, you need to rewrite the dictionary. "Why didn't we?" You can't help the question, and to be honest you're asking yourself just as much as you're asking him. More than seven years and neither of you had let yourselves cross that boundary, despite everyone else's assumptions.

He glances away, chewing on his lower lip, and you can feel him tense underneath you, which is absolutely un-fucking-acceptable. "Dude." You sit up, pulling him with you -- trying to have this conversation with your junk rubbing up on his is too distracting. So instead you both sit sideways on the couch, facing each other, but you're still crowded up against him, your arm across the back of the couch while your opposite hand rests on his thigh. "There is literally nothing you can say that's going to make me not wanna do that a fuckload more. So let's both just explain why we were too stupid to do that earlier, then we can get back to it, yeah?" He's scowling a little, which would make you worry if that wasn't his default expression. Dude has the platonic ideal of Resting Bitch Face. "I can go first if you want. It all started when I was a child--"

"Jegus fuck, no," he says, interrupting your ironic therapy schtick. "Let me get my bullshit out of the way before you ramble off your usual pan-rotting fuckery." There's a moment of hesitation before he scoots forward, sliding his leg over yours, his hands moving to fidget with the front of your shirt. Your own hand slides up from his thigh to settle on his hip, gently rubbing circles with your thumb. You can't help but glance down at it in a little bit of disbelief that apparently you get to just _do_ this now. You want to slide your hand under his sweater, touch his skin, but for now you can wait. For now.

You train your eyes back on his face as he takes a deep breath. "Fuck. Okay. Back on the meteor, things were really fucking confusing. For both of us, I know, but shut the fuck up and wait for your turn, because you asked about _my_ shit. I'll come out and say it and don't you fucking dare roll your eyes, but a lot of it was quadrants."

You give his hip a gentle squeeze. "I figured that was part of it. And look at my eyes, totally unrolled."

He _does_ look up at your eyes, and you can't help the gentle smile you give him. You can see one tug at his lips in response, before he's back to frowning at his hand. He's stopped fidgeting with your shirt, now just letting his palm rest on your chest. "In a lot of ways, we were pretty fucking pale, sharing my pile and whatever, but we never really jammed about _feelings._ And human romcoms almost never showed an equivalent of pale feelings, so I wasn't sure if it was like caliginous romance and humans didn't really _do_ that sort of thing, maybe you were just lonely and wanted physical comfort but I didn't really care because I liked it and you seemed to like it too. But me being a greedy sack of shit like usual, wanted a lot more than that. And sometimes it felt like we were right there on the edge of flushed but also sometimes I felt so fucking black I wanted to kiss you just to bite your face off. And _then_ you'd tell Vriska to fuck off when she would pitch-flirt with me -- she was the one doing it I don't give one single shitting _fuck_ what anyone else says because the way she tried to get under my skin was so textbook caliginous I want to vomit my guts up just thinking about it -- and my bloodpusher would fall ass backwards into ash leaves before my pan knew what the fuck was happening."

"I probably should have done that more, tee bee aytch. She was a really unnecessary bitch before the final battles."

"You were dealing with a lot of other shit, Dave; I went middle clove because she was being an even bigger bitch to you about Dirk. Not to mention it's literally ancient history by Earth C measurements. Besides, this is still Karkat Spills His Disgustingly Sentimental Guts Hour, so shut your fucking windhole. Anyway."

He hazards a glance up at you, and you recognize the look in his eyes, the sort of pity he tried to hide against your chest any time you saw it when you were tangled together in his pile. But this time, he doesn't look away. "I knew you were working on figuring out the whole human 'sexuality' thing and trying to decide how to talk to John and Jade about it, and wow I was not expecting to be there for the attempt and it was fucking excruciating for that to be the case when it was… kind of tangentially related to me? But after that awkward horrorshow, pushing to figure out what quadrant we might have been heading towards seemed like the biggest asshole move I could have pulled. And then we beat the Game and time just kind of… slipped away. I liked what we had and decided that even if we never sorted the 'almost' out, it would have been enough. _More_ than enough."

He smiles at you. Small but so _fucking_ warm and gentle and somehow still splitting your chest in two. You can't help it -- you move your arm from the couch, sliding a hand around the back of his neck to pull him in for another kiss. He kisses you back, heated and slow, while you carefully slide your tongue along his teeth. They're not as sharp as they look, still fang-shaped but rounded enough that you don't have to worry about making a wrong move and suddenly having a mouthful of blood. Which is good, because you're really enjoying shoving your tongue down his throat and not getting it sliced open. And then he's pushing you back against the couch, sliding to straddle your lap without ever breaking the kiss. His hands are in your hair as both of yours slide over his hips. This time you push them up under his sweater, fingers pressing against his grub scars.

He arches with a gasp and holy _fuck_ it's Bonerville, population: you.

He tries to lean in to resume kissing, but you tilt your face down, and his lips plant roughly on your forehead instead. You can't help but very very gently headbutt him in the mouth. "Okay, fuck, hold on, we're not done," you pant softly against his sharp collarbones, trying to get your heart to stop breakdancing against your ribs.

He growls and shoves his face into your hair. "Then you better get your fucking prongs _off_ my grubscars or it'll be too late for talking."

 _Holy fucking shit._ The growled sort-of-threat is _not_ helping your situation, and neither is the way he squirms in your lap when you slide your hands out from under his sweater, dragging your fingers against his grubscars probably a little harder than necessary. "So they're mute buttons, good to know. And I hate saying this -- _really_ fucking hate saying this -- but I need you to get off me because I can't focus enough to talk with you grinding on my dick."

"So that's _your_ mute button," he grumbles, sliding off of your lap and back onto the couch beside you. He keeps his leg thrown over yours, though, and it's weirdly grounding. You slide a hand up his pant leg, rubbing at his smooth, hairless skin, enjoying getting to touch him in the ways you wouldn't let yourself before. It was stupid; on the meteor the two of you had spent plenty of time un-self-consciously snuggled up together. You slept together, in his pile or in your bed probably at least once a week. But for the last seven years--

"Yeah, I'll admit it, a lot of it was the sexuality thing. I mean, I had it mostly figured out that I liked dudes too -- thanks for always being chill about the gay panic, by the way -- but still didn't really know how to _talk_ about it, y'know?" You sigh dramatically and let your head fall back against the sofa, still sliding your thumb over his shin as you stare up at the ceiling. "I was so fucked up trying to figure out how to explain it to John and Jade, though I never even _actually_ straight up told them. I mean, they connected the dots pretty goddamn quick considering how worried John was about his 'gay butterfly effect' which is _still_ a hilarious concept despite being the fakest shit, and even if they didn't, let's be real everyone else on the meteor was nosy as hell and had our fucking number about whatever was going on with us even before we did. And then talking to Dirk about Jake sent a whole bunch of brand new bullshit spiraling through my head regarding my Bro, y'know, on top of everything _else_ about him swirling around in my toilet bowl of a head, all backed up no matter how many times you flush it, and of course you're at your friend's house and you _really_ need to get back to the party but oh fuck it's about to overflow so you gotta--"

"For the love of fuck, Dave, this metaphor is disgusting even for you."

"Yeah, fair." You lift your head to look over at him. He's watching you, careful and intent, but obviously not surprised about anything you're saying. The same way you hadn't been surprised at anything he said. You both know each other inside and out (or at least will soon, ey-o), and you honestly doubt either of you _could_ say anything that would shock or surprise the other at this point in your lives. But this one thing had gone unspoken and unaddressed for too long and you'd ended up missing out on seven years of getting to freely touch him.

Never a-fucking-gain.

You shift, gently pushing him back onto the couch so you can lay on him, but this time with your head on his stomach. As though instinctive, he starts running his claws over your scalp again. Fuck yeah. "And then it was pretty much the same as your deal. Time just kind of got away from me while I was working on making my head not stupid, good job Knight of Time. And then we were living together and I dunno, it all just felt perfect already. I had you near and while I definitely _wanted_ to make out with you, having you near was all that I _needed,_ y'know? Does that make sense?"

His voice is quieter than you've ever heard it. "Yeah. Perfect sense."

"And it's so fuckin' stupid considering we had been meteor cuddle buddies but there was always that worry that it had just been comfort and I might fuck up what we already had and it just seemed like too much of a risk, you feel me?"

"Completely."

"And then Jade--"

Your stomach drops at her name, and you know that Karkat's does the same, you'd know that even if his hand hadn't stilled in your hair. "Yeah… Jade."

It's the one thing that could ever make you feel shitty about all of this. The two of you can be pretty fucking stupid, but not stupid enough to have been unaware of what she wanted (she made it pretty fucking obvious), even if you and Karkat refused to ever address it. Sorting your shit out with Karkat while she was right there would have felt… mean. You both loved her, and hurting her like that felt more than a little fucked up.

It even does a bit now, with her taking the poweriest of power naps. Like she just needed to be out of the picture long enough for you and Karkat to get over yourselves and finally make out. You kind of hate it.

The moment of silence goes on, a brief derailment in your otherwise honesty filled feels train. "So… yeah. That's my shit. Which you already knew, but there it is, face up on the table, winning hand, gonna take the whole pot and spend it on hookers and blow. You're the hookers and blow in this metaphor."

He groans, and you look up to see him rolling his eyes. "Real fucking charming, Dave. Now get up here so I can kiss you to shut you up."

"Dude, if that's gonna start being your method to stop the Strider Mumble Parade, it is going to backfire on you so hard 'cause you're just giving me incentive to do it more." You let him pull you up and you're once again laying on him between his legs, things soft between you this time (you don't mean your dick but you also don't _not_ mean your dick). The kiss he gives you is gentle and brief, not what someone would probably expect from two dudes finally addressing years of romantic tension.

You love this. You love _him,_ but that's nothing new. He's been your best friend, your absolute everything for years now, and it makes your head spin and your heart swell and your chest clench and your everything gay as fuck to know that you not only get to kiss him now, but simply close that distance that's been between you since the meteor, each giving the other space to figure things out. Not that you could keep away completely. For seven years the two of you have been magnets, being pulled together by little things like hands on backs and heads on shoulders until you realize it and pull away because you're magnets who are also dumbasses.

Touch-starved. That's what Rose had called you once. You'd gone thirteen years of your life without ever being touched in a way that wasn't getting your ass beaten. Then on the meteor Karkat had let you fall asleep on him and you suddenly couldn't get enough, even if you didn't seek it out as much as you wanted to.

On the lilypad, you'd only squeezed his hand before going off on your separate missions.

It's been different since the end of the Game, having everyone else around, with no end to bro hugs and regular hugs, cheek kisses from Roxy and Jade, and those treasured moments where you and Karkat just let yourselves be close. But at the moment, you're a teenager again, desperate to once again be close to the one person you'd ever felt comfortable _letting_ yourself be close to. So even after he kisses you, you stay pressed against him, nosing along his cheek and neck to simply enjoy being allowed to do it.

A contented hum escapes you when he presses a kiss to your temple, muttering against it. "It's late. Let's go to bed."

It's clear that 'go to bed' isn't a code phrase for 'get some fuck', and you're more than okay with that for now. A little relieved even, because as excited as you are about finally doing _that,_ the idea is still kind of intimidating. Besides, that's not what you want right now. "My room or yours?"

"Mine. Yours is so filthy even a fucking oinkbeast would be disgusted."

It takes a ridiculous amount of effort to peel yourself off of him, but as soon as you're standing, you pull him to you, crushing him against your chest in a hug and shoving your face into his hair between his horns. Getting up the stairs when you're refusing to let him go is going to be a bitch.

But he doesn't seem to be in a rush either, arms wrapped around your waist and face buried in your chest. "... Can we sleep in a pile?"

"Hell fucking yes we can, just like old times, but instead of flipping my shit when I wanna kiss you, I'm just gonna do it. That cool?"

"Yes it's cool, you douche-ridden fuckstick."

It takes everything in you to not make a joke about your fuckstick, because you know that if you do, you probably won't get to use it for a while. So instead, the two of you head upstairs to his room, taking just as long as you thought it would because you're both constantly stopping to kiss and touch each other. You finally get up there, and quickly shove some shit into a pile and strip down to your boxers, sighing happily once your limbs are tangled with his. You let yourself just enjoy holding him.

You can fuck in the morning.

\--

You definitely fuck in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly me trying to work out in my head the intense implications from the comic that Dave and Karkat were at the very least on the _cusp_ of a relationship with them apparently sitting on their hands for seven years.
> 
> Thanks for reading my nonsense.


End file.
